There are a multiplicity of reasons for providing a trench in a paved roadway such as a city street, road, highway or the like. The provision for water lines, cable television lines, telephone lines, mounting reflectors, adding road supports, are just a few of the reasons a trench may be necessary. However, with the crowding of roadways as the trenching operation occur, some licensing authorities have issued contracts that limit trenching systems to the use of single lane of roadway, with the remaining lane (s) to be open to vehicular traffic, In addition, the operations are to proceed as fast as possible, with fast clean-up of debris required. Set-up time to begin each work day, as a result have become an important cost factor since in many instances the trenching equipment must be trailered back to a off-site storage location as the conclusion of the work day.
Under these circumstances, trenching systems have included the use of adjuncts to the cutting saw to aid in the daily clean-up operations, such as compressed air and water as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,900,094 and/or the use of additional clean-up equipment such as manual labor, as contemplated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,551. Under both of these occasions, there is a need for a large work crew to clean the paved roadway and remove the debris dislodged from the roadway.
While I am aware of side-by-side conveyors for use with such trenchers including single disc and multiple disc saws, such conveyors of which I am aware are difficult to set-up on a daily, reoccurring basis, present difficulties in off-loading the debris to a waiting dump truck especially where only one lane is available for such operations, are clumsy in operations especially if the trench is not a straight line from start to finish point and require a rather large clean-up crew.